Given the previous success of brain-inspired approaches aimed at mitigating CF [1]}, [2]}, [3]}, [4]} looking again to the brain—which has developed effective processes to effortlessly tackle such recall—for inspiration seems inevitable. Neuroscience studies have shown that participants trained on competing image-name pairs (such as two similar ape images named Angus and Abner respectively) showed greater repulsion in their neural representations [5]}. What's more, greater repulsion is correlated with better recall of the image-name pairs, indicating that the brain actively differentiates between highly similar, competing memories to the improve their future recall. A more recent study by Zhao et al [6]} focused on identifying whether the distortion of specific feature dimensions of memories (such as colour) plays a role in memory repulsion. The study found that, given two images of the same object in slightly different colours, participants tended to exaggerate the colour difference between them, such that the pair were more distinguishable. As above, a greater colour exaggeration was associated with a greater recall of linked information. This suggests that the brain adaptively targets and accentuates small differences in important discriminating features of similar memories to reduce interference. Ultimately, this calls to attention to a new approach to deal with interference in ANNs: instead of fighting against interference, the model could be shaped by interference through an adaptive feature exaggeration based approach.
